South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan has a tough job. It is certainly much tougher than that of his predecessor, Trevor Manuel, who happily rode the coat-tails of a boom-time economy. Mr Gordhan finds himself at the helm with an increasingly turbulent global economy, rising unemployment, a shrinking tax base and a huge demand for money for public spend.

As far as the South African budget goes, the 2012 one appears to address all the things that rating agencies typically like to see. It is balanced and pragmatic, particularly given the economic challenges that South Africa is currently facing. No doubt the rich and the super-rich will be unhappy with their ever-increasing tax burden. In fact, Wonkie’s sources revealed that Sandton housewives gathered secretly after shopping last week and mumbled their disgruntlement about the increased dividend tax rates for hours. This was followed by numerous positive affirmations about how the country is going down the toilet.

Kugels aside, Mr Gordhan has limited options to raise funds for the ambitious public sector projects proposed by Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation address earlier this month. Who else but the few that are already earning can help him with that? Perhaps greater effort to tax the likes of the taxi industry and other high-value informal industries more effectively would have been a welcome addition to help raise the state’s coffers.

The bigger challenge however, Wonkie believes, is not collecting the funds to implement to these wonderful infrastructure projects. It is what happens after these funds are collected. The reason why tax-paying South Africans are irritated with the level of taxation is because they do not get the value for their contributions. Between government squandering funds on their personal jollies, rampant corruption, and tenderpreneurs that don’t deliver, there is so much leakage that only a fraction of tax funds goes to where it is supposed to.

Perhaps it is time for Mr Gordhan to apply his legendary skills in-house and clean up government’s act before raping the public any further with increased taxes, forced toll fees and the like. How would that be for a storyline for next year’s budget speech?

In the meantime, one can only hope that the rather arrogant insistence that the toll fees in Gauteng will go ahead will be met by crippling public protest. The public losing that battle is tantamount to allowing government free reign to be stupid with their spend.

If you are grateful that Mr Gordhan has not introduced the gambling sin tax in 2012, perhaps you should celebrate and play lottery online in India right now. If you’re after more real-time excitement, you can dabble on a selection of the best on the online casino South Africa list or Wonkie’s updated international online casinos directory. If you’re in India, be sure to flex your 2012 budget on the best India casinos where you can take a chance in rupees. If you’ve had enough talk about taxation and budgets, visit the latest recommended pages for other choices.